Magenta to Pink 



ish purple, 2 in. long or less; petals narrower and longer than 

 sepals. Lip an inflated sac, often over 2 in. long, slit down the 

 middle, and folded inwardly above, pale magenta, veined with 

 darker pink ; upper part of interior crested with long white 

 hairs. Stamens united with style into unsymmetrical declined 

 column, bearing an anther on either side, and a dilated tri- 

 angular petal-like sterile stamen above, arching over the broad 

 concave stigma. Leaves : 2, from the base ; elliptic, thick, 6 

 to 8 in. long. (Illustration facing p. 60.) 



Preferred HabitaT Deep, rocky, or sandy woods. 



Flowering Season May June. 



Distribution Canada southward to North Carolina, westward to 

 Minnesota and Kentucky. 



Because most people cannot forbear picking this exquisite 

 flower that seems too beautiful to be found outside a millionaire's 

 hothouse, it is becoming rarer every year, until the finding of one 

 in the deep forest, where it must now hide, has become the event 

 of a day's walk. Once it was the commonest of the orchids. 



"Cross-fertilization," says Darwin, "results in offspring 

 which vanquish the offspring of self-fertilization in the struggle 

 for existence." This has been the motto of the orchid family for 

 ages. No group of plants has taken more elaborate precautions 

 against self-pollination or developed more elaborate and ingen- 

 ious mechanism to compel insects to transfer their pollen than 

 this. 



The fissure down the front of the pink lady's slipper is not 

 so wide but that a bee must use some force to push against its 

 elastic sloping sides and enter the large banquet chamber where 

 he finds generous entertainment secreted among the fine white 

 hairs in the upper part. Presently he has feasted enough. Now 

 one can hear him buzzing about inside, trying to find a way out 

 of the trap. Toward the two little gleams of light through aper- 

 tures at the end of a passage beyond the nectary hairs, he at 

 length finds his way. Narrower and narrower grows the passage 

 until it would seem as if he could never struggle through ; nor 

 can he until his back has rubbed along the sticky, overhanging 

 stigma, which is furnished with minute, rigid, sharply pointed 

 papillae, all directed forward, and placed there for the express pur- 

 pose of combing out the pollen he has brought from another 

 flower on his back or head. The imported pollen having been 

 safely removed, he still has to st uggle on toward freedom through 

 one of the narrow openings, where an anther almost blocks his 

 way. 



As he works outward, this anther, drawn downward on its 

 hinge, plasters his back with yellow granular pollen as a parting 

 gift, and away he flies to another lady's slipper to have it combed 

 out by the sticky stigma as described above. The smallest bees 



82 



